About the Author

Angela Devlin is a writer, broadcaster and exponent of prisoners' rights whose work has attracted wide interest and acclaim: Criminal Classes (Waterside Press, 1995), Prison Patter: A Dictionary of Prison Slang (Waterside Press, 1996); Invisible Women: What's Wrong With Women's Prisons (Waterside Press, 1998), Anybody's Nightmare: The Sheila Bowler Story (Taverner Publications, 1998) and Going Straight After Crime and Punishment with Bob Turney (Waterside Press, 1999). Anybody's Nightmare, the true story of a wrongful conviction for murder, was later dramatised for ITV and featured the character 'Angela Devlin' campaigning for the case to be re-opened (The conviction was eventually quashed and the defendant acquitted after a new trial).

Reviews

'A thorough investigation into a controversial area'Safer Society'A remarkable sociological text which sizzles with love and pain and hope. I cannot commend this important book too highly':Claire Rayner (from the Foreword)